NeoAir Short – First outing.

My Cairngorm trip also was also the first outing for my NeoAir, but whereas the Golite Jam will now be my rucksack of choice when wild camping, the jury is very much out on the NeoAir.

First of all the with the NeoAir short, or revert to my Prolite, it’s a difficult call, 194grams or 6.9ozs is a big weight saving, but can I adapt to the NeoAirs short comings I'm not sure?

thNeoAir, it’s comfortable, it has a really small pack size and its very light, my short version weighs 278g including the 12g stuff sack.

The things which I don’t like about the NeoAir fall into two categories, generic NeoAir dislikes and ones which are associated with me choosing the short version.

Some of the things I don’t like about the NeoAir, are obvious before you buy, but I found them more irritating than I expected, these are the loss of headroom and the need to blow it up.

The NeoAir is 6.3 cm thick compared with my Prolite’s 2.5 cm, causing my head to touch the roof of the tent when I was sitting up, this was particularly unpleasant when the inner was wet with condensation. I also found my face was very close to the inner when lying down, which was quite claustrophobic and would be very uncomfortable in windy weather. As far as inflating the NeoAir short was concerned, it took a lot more wind than I’d anticipated, and after years of using Thermarest self-inflating mats, I’d forgotten just what a fag blowing up an airbed is when you’re tired!

The other thing didn’t like, which was my own fault for choosing the short version, was having my legs hanging off the end. I just didn’t have enough spare gear to pad out the gap, so found it very uncomfortable.

Will I continue with the NeoAir short, or revert to my Prolite, it’s a difficult call, 194grams or 6.9ozs is a big weight saving, but can I adapt to the NeoAirs short comings I'm not sure?

Maybe I’ll give it another chance, but I can also hear my dear old Dad’s favourite quote ringing in my ears “any fool can be uncomfortable when camping”.

343 Update.

Following my recent flurry of activity, I’ve managed to reduce the weight of my big three by 757g.

My shelter weight is unchanged at                                  1240g

My pack including liner has reduced by 562g to                 867g

My sleeping system has reduced by 188g to                   1377g

Big Three Total                                                               3484g

I’ve spent £148.49 on the purchase of my Golite Jam and Thermarest NeoAir to achieve this weight reduction, or to put it another way 19.7 pence per gram, . Was it worth it? I’m not sure, I‘ll be more able to tell after my next wild camping trip, which is likely to be mid May.

The NeoAir has arrived!

My NeoAir has arrived, it looks very small, but hopefully with a bit of practice I’ll be able to sleep without rolling off. It weighs 278g including the 12g stuff sack, and the pack size is truly amazing!

The photographs above show a comparison of my Thermarest sleeping mats, the green one is a Trecklite that I’ve had for years (823g), the mauve one is my Prolite (472g) and the yellow one is my Neo Air (278g).

NeoAir.

In the quest to reduce the weight of my “Big Three” my sleeping mat offers the second biggest chance to save weight. My current mat is a Thermarest Prolite (woman’s). I bought the woman’s version, because for the same advertised weight, it has an R-Value of 2.8 rather than the 2.2 of the men’s, it may be 6 inches shorter but that suites me fine.

To justify the cost of changing my mat, I need to save at least 150g. I’ve looked at quite a few mats and finally chosen the Thermarest NeoAir. The advertised weight for the small version is 260g which is 188g lighter than my Prolite, and if it suites Chris Townsend and Jorgan Johansson then it must be ok!

My Sleeping System

My sleeping kit weighs in at 1568g; I use a Mountain Equipment Xero 550 sleeping bag, with a Jag Bag silk liner to keep the inside clean. My current mat is a Thermarest Prolite (Woman’s). The Xero 550 is packed in a 15 litre Pod lite event dry bag, and the Thermarest travels in its original stuff bag with the label removed. 

As I have a tendency to sleep fairly cold, I’m reluctant to make a costly down grade to my sleeping bag, only to find it’s not warm enough, so no changes here for the moment.

With the advance in sleeping mats over recent years, I could save some weight by replacing the Thermarest Prolite, particularly if I can get my head around using a shorter mat.